Horizon Entertainment crew in Alaska shooting Weatherventures

Todd Easton is the owner and CEO of Horizon Entertainment in Rockville, Maryland. The company produces programming for a variety of cable networks. Their longest running series, House Detective, ran for over 100 episodes on HGTV. They have also produced documentary programming for Discovery Health and The History Channel.

Currently the team is producing Weatherventures http://tinyurl.com/2gafjx for The Weather Channel.

“We go to iconic American locations to look at how the weather influences the people who live in those locations,” explains Todd. “We have shot in Alaska, Hawaii, San Juan Islands, Catalina Island, the Badlands, Great Lakes, the Colorado Rockies, the Everglades, the Grand Canyon and Maine.”

“As we’ve been shooting, the show has morphed from a more travel-centric show to a more weather-centric show. We shot two and a half episodes heavy on the travel when testing revealed that The Weather Channel audience wanted more weather information. So the first two shows had to be recut and rewritten, and we had to shift our thinking to a more weather-centric concept.”

The series was the first foray into HD field production for the company. “We had never done an HD program, so we scrambled to install HD facilities and purchase the equipment we needed. We brought in a technical consultant and talked with anyone who would listen about the HD workflow,” Todd says. “We got to speed very quickly.”

Horizon Entertainment CEO Todd Easton

“For budgetary reasons the Weather Channel decided that we should use their DP and their camera equipment. They were in the process of making a large investment in P2 gear http://www.p2info.net/p2faq.php so it made sense to use it for this new series.”

P2 follows the same concept as storage cards that we all use in our digital still cameras. Each P2 card captures about 8 minutes of HD video. Larger cards are on the way.

But the decision to use the P2 format has presented a few challenges for Todd and his team.

“It is amazing technology . . . if you are shooting short pieces,” Todd says. “We typically shoot about 10 hours or more for each show. That requires an enormous investment in P2 cards as well as backup, and redundant backup in the field and storage space once the P2 data gets into post.”

“We also found it challenging to download the P2 material in the field,” Todd continues, “and the additional equipment required made it very cumbersome. Also, most of the hard drives large enough to store all the P2 data we shot are not really built for the extreme weather conditions we were covering. And then there were the additional labor costs. We had to add a production assistant to the crew just to manage the stored video and P2 cards.”

Todd says the crews found it difficult being able to playback the footage once it was stored in the field. “Unless you have Final Cut or another editing program on a portable computer with lots of storage space, the only thing you can do is download the data from the card on to a hard drive and wait to turn it into Quicktime clips back at the office. And that download in the field is done in real time. So an eight-minute card takes at least eight minutes to download. That adds up. Do the math — downloading five cards takes 40 minutes or more, and that’s time away from shooting.”

While some would counter that working with the P2 workflow is no different than shooting in 16mm film with its 11-minute 400 ft. magazine loads, Todd and his team see it differently.

“We feel the format should be compared to other high-end video formats. And in doing that comparison, it was MORE expensive, not less expensive to shoot long form with the P2. Also, the lack of playback and the cumbersome transfer workflow resulted in our not having some shots we thought we had.”

Todd concludes, “For short form programming, it seems ideal. But in my opinion, for long form, there are just too many places along the way where there can be problems.”

Despite the frustrations, Todd and his team succeeded in delivering the programs on time and within budget. You can catch the series on The Weather Channel starting Monday, Oct. 1 at 7:30p and 11:30p EST.

When asked what HD format might be considered for future projects, Todd replies, “Well, we are looking at the Sony Z1U http://tinyurl.com/6g7tp as a possible purchase, but we’re still researching.”

And they may have to make a decision soon given that the company has several projects in the pipeline.

“Despite our frustration with the P2 format, we have proven to ourselves that it is possible to turn out high quality HD programming in a cost-effective manner. We’re getting that message to the rest of our clients and to other cable buyers,” Todd says. “We are pitching a wide range of projects – yes, we’re planning to continue producing lifestyle type shows, but we are looking to do more reality and documentary work now as well. The Weather Channel series ‘lit a fire’ for us, and we plan to capitalize on that.”

Todd is fully aware that television production is a collaborative process, and he knows that he doesn’t have a monopoly on good ideas for television. He says, “I’d like to invite anyone reading this post to contact us about programming ideas they may have. We are always in the market for good ideas and good people with whom we could partner.”

Todd Easton can be reached at tvtodd@aol.com or 301-881-1702.